Drop Dead Chocolate: A Donut Shop Mystery

by Jessica Beck

  She patted my hand. “Don’t worry. You and Jake are cute together.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that description, but I wasn’t going to argue with her about it. “Thanks. I feel better.”

  “Are you certain it wouldn’t help to talk about your investigation?”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad,” I said. “We keep finding suspects, but unfortunately, we aren’t doing much to eliminate them. Momma, how did Cam ever get elected in the first place? Everywhere we turn, we find enemies of his.”

  “Cam was a great deal savvier than most folks gave him credit for at first,” Momma said. “I spoke with a few of the town’s leading citizens about getting their support in the election before Cam was killed, but every last one of them turned me down.”

  “I can’t believe that,” I said. My mother was not only very popular around town, she was also an influential businesswoman.

  “Believe it,” she said. “Cam had dirt on just about everyone who matters, and he was clearly not afraid to use whatever he had to keep everyone in line.”

  “Was he actually blackmailing them?” I asked. After what I’d been learning about Cam’s life, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

  “Not for money, but I believe he used his knowledge to push those who might have been reluctant to support him into his camp. I’m honestly not at all certain I would have beaten him out for the job if he’d lived. He would have been a tougher opponent than I ever anticipated.”

  And then something hit me, something I’d been ignoring all along. “Momma, maybe we’re going at this the wrong way. Who profited most when the mayor was murdered?”

  “I thought that’s what you’ve been exploring,” she said, clearly a little confused by my question.

  “No, I mean in business. He won the bid for the new sewer plant, but who did he beat out for it? That might just be a motive we’ve been missing so far.”

  “I don’t know, but I can find out. Let me make some phone calls,” she said as she reached for her phone.

  “Can I get dinner while you’re calling?”

  “It’s in the oven, reheating. I’m not sure I’ll be finished in time, though.” She glanced at her watch. “This might take a while. Would you like to eat first, or wait until after I’m through with my calls?”

  “Make the calls first,” I said, remembering my big lunch. “This is important.”

  She nodded. “Fine. What are you going to do in the meantime?”

  I thought about it and said, “It’s a nice evening. I think I’ll take a walk in the park. Maybe it will clear my head some.”

  “Be careful, and take a heavy jacket,” Momma said, almost by rote.

  I smiled but did as she asked, and walked outside to stroll around the park that was right outside our door. Walking helped me think, and I needed that more than anything else at the moment, time to process everything I’d learned in the course of the murder investigation.

  I wasn’t going to get it, though.

  As I neared the Patriot’s Tree, a scene of death and vengeance several times over the years, a man stepped out of the shadows, nearly scaring me to death in the process.

  * * *

  “What are you doing here?” I asked laughing as I collapsed in Jake’s arms. “You scared the wits out of me.”

  After a long-overdue kiss, Jake pulled away. “Sorry about that. I should have warned you I was coming, but to be honest with you, I couldn’t stand not being able to see you.”

  “Not that I’m complaining, but how did you know I’d be out here?” He smelled wonderful, and I had to keep touching his chest to make sure that my boyfriend was really there with me, and not just in my imagination.

  “I didn’t. I was about to call you when I saw you come out of the house. I’m just lucky, I guess.”

  “You could have rung my doorbell,” I pointed out.

  “I would have been tempted, but I’m not sure it would have been a good idea.” He kissed me again, and then wrapped me up in his arms. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. It sounds silly, since we’re both in the same town, doesn’t it?”

  “Not silly at all,” he said. “If we can’t be together, does it really matter how much space is between us?”

  “That’s about the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I said.

  “Hey, I have my moments.”

  I kissed him again, and then asked, “Are you making any progress on the case?”

  “You know I can’t really talk about an active and open investigation, Suzanne, even with you,” he said.

  “Not directly, anyway,” I answered with a grin. “Do you know Morse code? You could tap out some hints for me.”

  “Do you know it yourself?” he asked, clearly curious.

  “Oh, yes. Grace and I learned it so we could chat in school during class time. It drove most of our teachers crazy hearing rhythmic taps all of the time.”

  He shook his head, but I could see his smile. “Why am I not surprised? You must have been handfuls back then.”

  “Some folks think we’re pretty tough to handle now,” I replied.

  “I don’t doubt it.” Jake took a breath, then asked, “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to? I know you haven’t been in town all day.”

  “How could you possibly know that? Are you stalking me, Jake?” I asked playfully.

  “No, but I saw you and Grace drive into town earlier. I was tempted to pull you over and give her a ticket for speeding.”

  “She was rushing home to talk to her boyfriend,” I explained.

  “Then I might have had to let her off,” he said. “Seriously, I’m not above taking a little help on this one. What have you found out?”

  I didn’t even play games; I told Jake everything we’d all learned, and all of my suspicions. He whistled softly as I finished. “Wow, you have been busy.”

  “Don’t forget, I had some help from my friends, too,” I said.

  He tilted his head to one side. “No doubt. You’ve turned up a few good leads there, I have to give you credit for that.”

  “Which ones in particular?” I asked, trying to get a little information out of him.

  “Let’s just say there a few angles I haven’t had a chance to hit yet. I’m particularly interested in hearing about Harvey Hunt and the money he claimed to have paid Cam before he was murdered.”

  “I’ve been dying to ask you. Did you find any cash on the mayor?” I asked.

  “No, but I’m going to take a closer look at his bank accounts and then poke around his house to see if I can uncover something.” Jake took a deep breath, then said, “Suzanne, there’s something I can tell you that might be related to all of this, but you have to promise not to tell anyone where you heard it.”

  “I promise,” I said, meaning every syllable of it.

  Jake nodded. “Harvey Hunt is the bidder who came in second on the sewage plant bid, and the project defaults to him now.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “So it looks like he had two motives to want to see Cam dead, didn’t he?”

  “That’s what it sounds like to me.” Jake glanced at his watch and said, “Sorry I can’t stay longer, but I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”

  “With Harvey?” I asked.

  Jake just laughed. “You know that I can’t say,” he said as he nodded his head up and down and grinned. “I love you, Suzanne.”

  “I love you, too, and I never get tired of hearing you say it.”

  After Jake was gone, I headed back to the cottage, feeling a little of the load of the world lift off my shoulders with every step I took. It was good having Jake in my life, and if Peter made Grace feel one thousandth as good, I wished her the very best.

  * * *

  Momma was in the kitchen when I got back. “I tried every contact I had, but with those sealed bids, I couldn’t find out who Cam was bidding against,” she said, removing some meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans fr
om the oven.

  “It was Harvey Hunt,” I said. “He gets the contract by default now.”

  Momma looked at me and must have seen my smile. “Jake told you.”

  “How could you possibly know that? Did you see him?” I asked as I looked out the window toward the darkened park.

  “I didn’t have to,” she answered with a smile of her own. “You always get that goofy grin on your face whenever he’s around.”

  “Guilty,” I said.

  As Momma plated up our food, she asked, “So, did Harvey just go to the top of your suspect list?”

  “More important, he’s there on Jake’s. Congratulations. You’ve been unseated.”

  “It’s a number one spot I’ll gladly give up any day,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” I answered. “We’ll figure this out.”

  “I just hope someone does it quickly,” Momma said. She was about to add something else when her frown disappeared. “Now, are you ready to eat?”

  “More than ever,” I said.

  The world was suddenly brighter, and I had renewed faith that the killer would be unmasked soon.

  I just hoped that it was true.

  * * *

  As I drove through town the next morning in the dark, I found my spirits lifting a little, knowing that Emma would be back at work today. Every time she was gone, I found myself missing her presence working beside me.

  I was still smiling as I walked up to the door of my shop, but the smile faded in an instant.

  My store’s front window, so carefully painted with the Donut Hearts logo, was shattered and lay in a thousand pieces on the floor inside. As I glanced in, I could see from the light of a nearby streetlight that there was a brick resting on one of my couches with a note wrapped around it. I knew I should wait for the police before I looked at it, but there was a part of me that wanted to see what I’d done to stimulate that kind of atrocious action. I had to know.

  I had decided that the cops could bark at the moon and started to put my key into the front-door lock when a patrol car came driving up, its lights flashing, though the siren was silent.

  Officer Grant, a customer and a man who was slowly becoming my friend, got out holding a long, heavy flashlight on me. “What’s going on here, Suzanne?”

  I pointed to the broken window. “Somebody’s clearly not happy with me. How did you know this happened? I just found it myself.”

  “We got a tip,” he said. “Is the door locked?”

  I tried it and found that it was.

  “Unlock it, and then stay here,” he said.

  I did as I was told, and as he walked inside, Officer Grant drew his weapon, along with the flashlight he was carrying.

  I must have held my breath as he investigated, but to my relief, he finally came back out front, flipping lights on as he approached.

  “Nobody’s here,” he said. “You can come on in.”

  As I did, I went to the brick, but he stopped me. “The chief is going to want to see that first.”

  “Too bad. I’ll show it to him when he gets here,” I said as I reached for it.

  Grant asked softly, “Please? It will make my life easier if you don’t touch it first.”

  I couldn’t do it, not with that plea. “How long will it take him to get here?”

  Officer Grant looked outside, and then nodded. “Unless I miss my guess, that’s him on his way right now.”

  The chief joined us, dressed in slacks and a polo shirt instead of his usual uniform. He barely glanced at me, then carefully picked up the brick with gloved hands.

  “You can’t seriously get prints from that, can you?” I asked.

  “The gloves are for the note,” he explained. “We might be able to trace the brick a different way.”

  Instead of untying the knot, Chief Martin cut the hemp rope with a pocketknife and then slid the coil into a paper bag. “Might be important,” he said. He carefully removed the note, then held the brick out to Officer Grant, who was waiting with a bag of his own for it.

  Finally, after taking forever, the chief opened the note, looked at it, and then started to put it into a clear bag of its own.

  “No way you’re not showing that to me,” I said with enough force to let him know I meant it.

  He appeared to think about it, then shrugged and opened it toward me.

  BUTT OUT.

  That was all it said, but it was enough, backed up with the violence of the shattered window. “Any chance you’ll take this advice?” the chief asked me.

  “What do you think?”

  Officer Grant snorted once to cover up his smile. After a second, he excused himself and went out to his patrol car.

  When he was gone, the chief asked, “You need someone to fix this for you?”

  For a split second I thought about calling my favorite handyman, Tim, but he wasn’t around anymore, a victim of murder himself not that long ago. “Don’t worry. I’ll find someone to do it.”

  The chief surprised me by saying, “I’ve got time. I’d be glad to take care of this myself.”

  “Aren’t you on duty?” I asked. Was he feeling genuinely nice toward me, or was this just a ploy to get closer to my mother? Not that he needed my help.

  “No, I’m strictly a day-shift kind of guy. I’ve got some plywood in my basement, and while it might not be much, it’ll hold until someone can get here and replace the glass.”

  “Thanks, that would be wonderful,” I said, honestly meaning it. Even if the gesture was more for my mother’s sake than mine, the chief had been making a real effort to get along with me lately, and I wasn’t about to rebuff him. Besides, I didn’t have all that many options without a handyman I could count on.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  I grabbed a broom and started sweeping up, and was almost finished when Officer Grant came back in. At least it wasn’t summertime. Since it was February, I hoped that the bugs that got into the shop would be minimal.

  Grant handed me his clipboard and said, “Just sign this and you can give it to your insurance company to get reimbursed for your window.”

  “I’ll probably just pay for the glass myself, since my premiums will probably go up if I report this.”

  “Either way, you’re covered,” he said.

  I signed the form, and then got a copy so far back that it was barely legible.

  “Want me to stick around until you get this fixed?” he asked. “I don’t mind lingering a little if it would make you feel any safer.”

  I doubted the chief would have wanted him there, and besides, I was in my own shop, and no one was going to scare me enough so that I felt I needed protection there. It was my safe haven from the evils of the world, and I wasn’t about to let one brick-throwing fool spoil it for me.

  “I’m okay, but thanks for offering,” I said.

  “Suit yourself,” Officer Grant said as he headed for his patrol car.

  The chief was as good as his word, and he was back quickly with everything he needed to temporarily patch my window. He had just mounted the plywood over my empty window frame when Emma came in.

  “What happened here?” she asked as she shivered a little.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute after I turn the heat up. Flip the fryer on, will you? And you might want to get out some of the ingredients for our cake donuts.”

  “Will do,” she said, and quickly disappeared into the back. With any luck, our donuts would be ready, right on time. The donuts must go on, or the show, or whatever. I wasn’t about to disappoint my customers, and in the process, let the person trying to scare me out of my shop feel like they managed it.

  “Can I pay you for the plywood?” I asked the chief as the last screw went into the frame and he stood back looking at it, satisfied with his work.

  “No, it was just taking up space, anyway. This should hold for now.”

  “Thanks, Chief,” I said, and to both our surprise I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek
.

  He made an excuse and was gone in a heartbeat before either one of us could say another word.

  As I walked into the kitchen, Emma asked incredulously, “Did I just see you kiss the chief of police on the cheek?”

  “Why weren’t you working instead of snooping?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Are you kidding me? I didn’t want to miss the show.”

  As I started my prep for the cake donuts, I said, “Someone tried to warn me off from my investigation with a brick through our front window, and the chief was nice enough to lend a hand to patch it until I can get the glass replaced.”

  Emma looked at me carefully and asked, “You’re not backing off, though, are you?”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. “No way. This just means I’m getting closer to catching the killer if he has to resort to this kind of stunt.”

  Emma nodded. “But you don’t have any idea who it might be yet, do you?”

  I grinned at her. “Honestly? Not really. I seem to have plenty of suspects, but there aren’t really any front-runners so far.”

  Emma bit her lower lip, then said, “Maybe something Dad learned could help. Did you know that William Benson had more reason to want to see Cam out of the picture than what happened with his permit?”

  “No,” I replied as I finished mixing the batter for my basic cake donut. “Why else would he want to see the mayor dead?”

  Emma nearly crowed as she reported, “It turns out that William was interested in Kelly himself.”

  “Romantically?” I found it hard to believe that sweet old Uncle William could be interested in a younger woman like Kelly. I knew some men were attracted to flashy, trashy women, but I didn’t think William would be one of them.

  “Oh, yes. He had a major crush on her, from what Dad heard. William wanted to get rid of his competition, and Cam knew it. That was the real reason why he denied William a permit to expand. It was a way to show him that Cam had all of the power, and from what Dad learned, it just about drove William crazy.”

  “It’s another good motive for one of my suspects,” I said. “I don’t mean to be greedy, but was there anything else?”

  I started feeding the batter into my dropper, but I wasn’t ready to put any in the oil yet. It required swinging the dropper back and forth in order to drive the batter to the bottom, and it wasn’t safe for anyone else to be around when I did. As long as Emma could feed me more information, I would just have to hold off on donut making.